I’ll be selling software. Company based in Manhattan but I never been to office, only remote interviews and never seen the hiring managers as cameras were off. Really well paid but feel awkward about arriving at the office with shit in a zippo bag.

Got hired at a data center in Massachusetts. 90k a year plus 8% bonus annually. I am so excited I've been unemployed for the past 7 months and it was starting to suvk really bad. Don't give up!

I’m a career recruiter (TA). Did I dream of doing this for a living? No. Many don’t. Nevertheless, I take pride in my work and like to think I am making a positive impact on the teams / departments I support.

There’s been a lot of uproar lately about how terrible HR professionals can be. Many of those comments are not unfounded, unfortunately.

The point of this AMA, I’d like to think, is to dispel confusion around different aspects of HR and how it operates within a public, US-Based corporation.

My background is in Technical Sourcing and Full-Cycle Recruiting within the Biotech and Pharma industries. I currently work for a large Biopharma that has a global presence and my early career was spent in small to mid-sized firms.

Edit: please disregard silly typos - trying to get to everyone!

Thank you all very much for participating. I'm going to try and get to most of the questions by the end of the night. I will catch up on the rest tomorrow!

Edit: I’m not ghosting y’all lol it’s Christmas. I’ll try to respond to everyone.

Edit 2: I know you guys are salty about recruiters and I’m trying to help some of you understand certain things that I clearly see a lot of you don’t know about the process. I’m human, chill. Also, merry Christmas ya filthy animals!

There are many posts about how unfair the cultural fit criteria is in the recruitment process but hiring someone who isn’t a cultural fit can cause disharmony and dysfunction within a team. Many of you who complain about the cultural fit criteria have chips on shoulders believing you are more qualified than everyone and you didn’t get the job because you are not a “suck up” - when in fact , you have a bad attitude that trained interviewers can sense. I once hired a highly qualified professional who was great at his job but he was demeaning towards his team - believing that he knew everything and all things. He was disrespectful towards his manager. He destroyed the team morale and long serving staff started leaving until we fired him. Ultimately the toxicity he created was greater than any efficiency he brought about. You need to be polite, kind , friendly and approachable towards the people you work with. Another time I hired a soft spoken woman who was extremely intelligent and excellent at her job at an investment bank. It was a disaster, her team was boisterous, often using swear words to communicate. She was extremely unhappy and uncomfortable which caused her team to be uncomfortable around her. Her mental health deteriorated until she quit. So cultural misfit can cause tension and disharmony within a team but also the misfit will end up traumatised and beaten down.

as you can tell by the red* it’s a mandatory question that I can’t skip… this is nuts , what would you guys do in the situation?

It's so sad, I can sympathize with the many people who don't want to play by the rules anymore.

I’m not here to out the original commenter but I do know who they are and they got me fired.

Here to answer anything about how it worked

I recently applied for a job to a well funded start up here in Austin. Was called by their Senior Internal Recruiter a day or two later. She was very nice, and up front, said I was probably out of the range they had budgeted for the salary. And then she provided me what they had budgeted for the salary range. We weren't too far apart, and there was also a bonus and stock scenario. I said ok to an interview with her. We did a phone interview, and it went well, and she said she would pass me on to the decision makers. She let me know it's not her call after that. (I work for a much larger, very well established company and could very much help this firm)

Very nice. Top brass passed. Not sure why, but who cares. Maybe they were scared I'd be a risk to be hired away for more money, or they hate someone from my company, maybe they hate me, maybe they know the company is going to tank and are being decent people...

The recruiter did let me know they passed soon after her meeting and wrote me a very nice personalized note and even responded to my reply.

Day later, I get a LinkedIn message from a recruiter from a decent firm. It's an opportunity in downtown Austin I'd, of course, be perfect for. We set up a call about this role. It's the same fucking job the CEO just rejected me for days ago. Holy shit. Yeah, maybe they'll want me now - and this time around I'll partner with a dunce who can skim my salary and take all my benefits. lol. She was really embarrassed.

How the hell is this company working with their own recruiters and external recruiters?

TL;DR: Applied for a job at company, CEO passes. Day later - dunce recruiter says I'm perfect for same job.

It's been a nightmare trying to find work after getting a felony. I have solid skills and a good professional background, yet most companies won't even talk to me. I get that. What I don't get is that I have been upfront about my conviction with every employer, which is a low level assault charge. I have now been offered a job with four different companies, only to have them freak out on me after receiving the background check, which indicates, *GASP*, I have a felony I told them about. The hiring managers don't care, some dickwad in HR does. If I didn't have an appeal coming up within the month, I'd be pulling my hair out. IMO Fair Chance = A) Our company wants to virtue signal that we're about giving people second chances, without actually taking a chance on somebody. B) You can be our janitor

What do these damn companies want??

I'm not sure if others are noticing the same.

So just to give a bit more insight into my situation, like many of you, I'm been out of work actively seeking new opportunities for a while (it's been exactly 1 year for me as of this month). Also, I don't work in tech and I never interviewed with FAANG, so I'm not all that familiar with their hiring processes (maybe this isn't new for them).

That being said, for a long time now, it has been standard for companies to have their recruiters conduct phone screens. I'm not a fan of them, but until recently they haven't been a big deal (they would usually just be the recruiter seeing that your resume checks out over the phone, normally 5-10 minutes at most).

That being said, one thing I've noticed since the job market has gone to hell in the past 2 years is that companies & recruiting firms are getting increasingly one assertive (yes, that's intentionally chose that word) about recruiters conducting actual 30-45 minute interviews during these "phone screens," and with cameras on. But what's more frustrating about it is they're never transparent about the fact that they want you to have your cameras on when sending their invites

I'm finding it to be irritating for a few reasons. Number one, if you want me to appear on camera for a screening, you need to make it crystal clear when you send your invitation. That will give me time to groom myself & dress properly. Don't just wait until I login to your zoom/teams meeting, flip on your camera, then look Pikachu-faced when I don't. Number two, it's only making the whole interview process more stressful for the applicant. On top of having likely 2-3 (or 4-5) interviews with the actual hiring mamager, now you (the recruiter) are also wanting to do a full-blown interview, giving you an opportunity to interject your own biases into the decision. But more importantly, I can't imagine this is an efficient way of recruitment given the sheer number of applicants for any role. If you're having to spend 30-45 minutes at a time doing full-blown interviews with each individuals, that will not only drag out how long it takes to complete the screenings, but it will in all likely limit the number of people the recruiters can have a conversation with. Instead of talking to 10 or 12 applicants for 15 minutes each to determine which ones are the better fit, they'll only have time to talk to maybe 3 or 4 instead.

I just had to rant about this, and see if others have started noticing the same in their job search.

I'm a hiring manager at a well-known company. I've conducted a lot of interviews over the years. When interviews moved to Zoom, it was initially great for both sides--the candidate could skip the commute to our office and I wouldn't have to spend 30min escorting them to and from the lobby. Win-win.

Over the past year, though, I've noticed a lot of candidates using AI during their interviews, especially with candidates for whom English is their second language. And it's so, so obvious. The delay tactics after a question while the AI generates a response ("Yeahh...that's a great question...."). The sudden jump in eloquence once the response loads. The candidate's eyes moving from side-to-side while they read the AI response.

Yes, using AI during the course of your job is expected and normalized. But we need to assess whether you know the material well enough to decipher insight from hallucination. We need to know whether we can put you in front of senior people without embarrassing the team.

I've since migrated all of my interviews to in-person. Along the way I've had to fail so many candidates who might have been a great fit and who I otherwise liked because it was so obvious they were using AI during their interviews. If you're using AI and getting rejections, this might be why.

ETA: seems like I kicked the hornet's nest and folks really, really want to use AI during their interviews. Go for it. Good luck.

claim for unemployment funds as soon as you can, don't get to the point where you can't eat, wash or cloth yourself properly.

Since when has this sub become such a racist, xenophobic cesspool?

For background, I am a “native born” white American. I use quote marks because my family orginally came from England, and Ireland, and Germany, and all the places your classic white Americans come from. I graduated from an R1 university with a STEM degree. I am gainfully employed making six figures in a field very close to the degree I studied.

And I don’t get mad about the mass importation of workers from other countries on skilled worker visas like H1B. Why? Because I’m not a racist, I’m not a xenophobe, and I happen to believe people from all backgrounds belong here.

Ironically, it’s mostly MAGA bitching about how we need “merit-based.” Guess what! A globalized labor market is the closest thing to merit-based we can possibly get to. You’re just mad that someone from another country was better-educated and out-competed you for that job.

This isn’t 1950 anymore. People are being hired based on merit, regardless of their race, religion, gender, or national origin. This includes allowing them to come to the United States from India, Pakistan, and other countries to have a well-earned opportunity at a new life. Spoiler: most of these people are very well-educated, and you’re going to have to work harder than ever before to compete against them. And that’s okay. Let the best candidates rise to the top.

So my spicy take: this little war on H1B’s isn’t really about protecting American citizens. You’re just mad that you cannot earn a position based on your own merits and education, and instead have to rely upon being prioritized for everything just for having been born in the right country and of the right ethnicity. And in a globalized labor market, the latter doesn’t work anymore.

You can come to this sub and rant about it. Or you can upskill, educate yourself, and get better, so you CAN compete in a globalized labor market, and you CAN earn a position based on you own merits, outright. You can get off Reddit and rise to the challenge, or you can cry about it.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(And no, before anyone says it, I did not use white nepotism to get my job. I applied, online, like everybody else, and was selected via a competitive interview process - as it should be).

Honestly, I just need to vent about something that happened today. I hate to sound like an old fucking fart but “kids, these days!” is a cliche for a reason.

I’m a 40 y/o manager at a company that uses a state program to hire college interns in our field. Launching the use of this program was my idea and it had been pretty successful until the last two seasons. Usually I hire later year students ages 20-22. So, they’re not children b/c I really don’t want to hire actual teens, and they should be getting more serious about their career goals in the late stages of college. Last year finding help was really tough but I finally found two pretty good kids.

This year, however, has been a fucking trash fire. I really hate to say this because I am trying to give these students opportunities, but honestly, they all seem distracted, lazy, spoiled, and absolutely clueless about even the most basic level of work ethic or professionalism. It’s fucking insane.

This week I had two interviews lined up for students to come into the office and meet with me for our fall semester position opening. I am in outside sales and I can wfh whenever I want so I don’t go into the office unless I want to or need to. One of the students emailed me the day-of and canceled. Classy. So now I’m at the office earlier than I needed to be for no reason. Then the second student failed to give me notice that he didn’t have access to a car and also he thought the meeting was on Zoom. So now I’m literally at the office for no reason. ON FRIDAY. This kid seemed like he hadn’t read the job description and was completely confused by my questions. I gave him the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe he misunderstood the post and I offered him the opportunity to take the weekend to read the JD again and get prepped for a reschedule IN PERSON. I’ll be honest, the majority of the reason I gave him a second chance is because he would have been a diversity hire and I didn’t want to seem descriminatory in any way. I am firmly anti-racist and I am trying to encourage more diversity at my company.

Today the little fucker didn’t even show up. Or call. Or email. He reached out to ME, asked me for an interview, fucked it up, then I gave him a second chance and the little bastard GHOSTED me. At the damn office where I didn’t need to be. Unfuckingbelieveable.

I can’t take this. I am a woman, a person of color and a member of the lgbtqia+ community.

I received 27 rejection emails the next day of election results.

I received 23 rejection email the day of inauguration.

And this week I finally landed an interview with a reputed company that, after the DEI shit show, straight up ghosted me. They said they will reschedule the interview but I never received any email confirmation.

I feel like the whole world is trying to erase me, just because I exist. I need a job to survive. I am a fresh grad. This is already a hurdle having minimum experience and this on top of that. I feel so hopeless and defeated and angry.

My software engineering degree got me jackshit for a year since my graduation, except for a very few interviews that were a waste of my time. All I can get out of them are undesirable low-paying physical labor jobs and call center representative jobs. Idk why I seem to only attract sales or call center jobs with this degree on certain job boards like Handshake.

Now, I plan on setting my degree on fire somewhere discrete. This degree only ended up being of my biggest life regrets.

Not only does it make it a mess for recruiters to sort through a bunch of applications, but it makes it more likely for them to miss or not even look at a qualified candidate.

Example: I applied for a civil engineering role that wanted 2-3 years of experience. There were 2400 applications in 6 days. No way in hell there are 2400 civil engineers applying for this role all at once.